by: Tom Lounges
A DEEP WELL OF VERY COOL MUSIC
(photo by Dan Machnik/Graphic Arts by Jason)
Perhaps
one day a little brick house built during
The Roaring Twenties
and nestled away in Dyer, Indiana may become as famous a landmark as the
house at 2400 Fulton Street where the Jefferson Airplane set up their musical
commune in the mid-‘60s; or the famous “Big Pink” house up in West Saugerties, New York, where The Band and Bob Dylan created some of their best
work in 1967.
Such is the hope of the four bohemian lads of the
fast-rising
Steepwater Band, a bluesy rock combo voted by the readers of the Midwest BEAT
Magazine as the region’s top band of 2001.
“Our friends have already taken to calling it,
‘Little Pink’,” mused
drummer Joe Winters, of the crib where he resides and creates with his
musical brothers –– Tod Bowers (bass), Michael Connelly (lead vocals and
harmonica) and Jeff Massey (lead vocals and guitars).
Beads hang in the doorways, vintage posters of
Bob Marley and original
art renderings dot the walls, and their living room “coffee” table sports a
variety of half empty whiskey bottles rather than the more customary java. Filling the room are the strains of bands like The Paul Butterfield Blues
Band, classic Zeppelin and like-minded blues-based rock stalwarts. Colt,
their massive mascot of a dog, romps about the house in a free-spirited
fashion. A visit to ‘Little Pink’ was truly like tripping back
to the dawn
of the FM-era for this aging rocker.
Along with being a cradle of creativity, the
house is hub of business
as well. Bowers runs the band’s website from a converted bedroom
office,
where he and Winters both handle the band’s publicity and promotional chores
–– from hand bills and gig posters to formal press releases. “We do
everything from this house,” laughed Bowers, lighting a smoke and taking a
deep draw. “This place is Steepwater Command Central!”
“That we have lived here together for nearly
two years and haven’t
killed each other, says a lot about the bond that the four of us have
formed,” said Massey. “There have been a few tense moments here and
there,”
added Winters, “but mostly in the very beginning. We just always sit
down
and talk and look at what’s best for the band if any issues come up.”
Speaking even louder of the brotherly bond
between the four distinct
personalities which comprise the entity called Steepwater, is the music that
comes together in the basement rehearsal space they have built at ‘Little
Pink.’
A wealth of rock solid and soul deep music has sprung
forth from that
cramped little space decorated with spray-painted walls and twinkling
Christmas lights. And to hear the very latest tunes the quartet have
worked
up, only promises that as good as their four albums to date have been, the
very best is still yet to come.
Their latest CD – Brother To The Snake – released
in mid-2001, took top
honors in the aforementioned Midwest BEAT readers poll. It’s the latest
in a
steady string of albums collectively released by the core Steepwater line-up
since 1999, which bear titles like Bottles Of Wine, Goin’ Back Home and a
self-produced “live bootleg” called, Live...Half In The Bag.
Bottles of Wine was Connelly’s pre-Steepwater project
with Gene Kilty,
which had Bowers, Massey and Winters on board as “guest” players.
Goin’
Back Home was Steepwater’s first official release (when the band was still a
trio), and Connelly returned the earlier favor by “guesting” on it.
Live...Half In The Bag, simply put, was a drunken night of jamming in a local
studio with tapes rolling.
That said, all four members really consider Brother To
The Snake to be
their first album together as a band.
“It’s a good album and we’re certainly very proud
of it, but even that
album is not really reflective of where we are as a band and where we are musically right now,” comments Connelly.
“We were still getting
together
when we wrote the material on that album. We had just moved in here and
although we’ve all known each other for a long time, we were really just
starting to feel each out musically when those songs were being written.”
“That’s true,” agrees Bowers, “there’s more
of a chemistry between us
now. When you live together and spend the whole day working on songs and
playing together you form a connection that is almost surreal. You all become
a part of the same creative...you know... vibe I guess. It’s like we
know
what each other are thinking.”
While all members are a part of the think tank process
that breathes
life into a collection of random riffs, lyrics and rhythm ideas, Massey and
Connelly seem to be the primary writers of the combo. “I have
boxes of
tapes full of ideas,” said Massey. “I tape everything! I take
handfuls of
tapes with me when I’m driving somewhere and play them back and sometimes an
idea from a month ago or a year ago or even further back suddenly makes sense
and lends itself to words I’ve written or words that Michael’s written. Sometimes, nothing happens when I listen to those older ideas and I just
throw the tapes back in the box in the hopes that one day we can use them.”
All four guys have a very healthy attitude in regards
to their career
and their music. They all understand that good things come to those who
wait
and who keep the faith. They believe that the long and tedious
journey each
has made to get to this point in their respective lives has been a
pre-destined path and that those individual paths have now merged into a
four-lane highway that hopefully will take them to their ultimate destination.
And that destination is not necessarily
anticipated to be the
“toppermost of the poppermost” charts, to coin the now famous aspirations a
young John Lennon once had for his fledgling young combo.
“We don’t want to
have a huge hit and then be the subject of a ‘Where Are They Now?’ a year later,” stated Winters.
“We want to have
longevity and we hope that if we do ever get to that point where we are
signed and famous or what have you, that it comes to us more as a slow and
steady climb, rather than a quick shot to the top.”
“That’s how things have gone so far for us,” he
continued. “It’s been
a very slow process. It’s been frustrating sometimes, but we see steady progress – in the music, in the shows, and in the band’s career.”
“We’ve stayed true to what we want to do
musically,” added Connelly.
“And in this area, sometimes it’s hard to get gigs when you do that.
Clubs
all want bands that play a lot of popular cover songs and that’s just
not
where we’re at with this band.”
While Steepwater does toss a cover song into their set
once in awhile,
they are performed in a 100% Steepwater manner. “Sometimes people
don’t
even recognize them until we get to the lyrics,” adds Connelly. “Then
you
see it in their faces – ‘Oh, I know that song!’”
“We jam out a lot,” added Bowers. “We like
to stretch out and play
when we’re on stage. Especially if we’re really feeling it that night.
We
do that on our own songs, so we do it on cover songs too.”
While they are admittedly prone to improvising on stage, the tag “jam band” as it is used
today, does not really fit on Steepwater.
“We’re more of a ‘jam band’ in the tradition of
the Allman Brothers or
Govt. Mule, than of bands like Phish or Widespread Panic,” adds Winters. “So in that context, we are a ‘jam band’ I guess.”
Fortunately, sticking to their guns and staying true to
the spirit of
their music is starting to pay off at long last.
“We have found that a lot of people are coming back
to see us,” said
Winters. “We see a lot of the same people at a lot of shows and we see a
lot
of new faces at a lot of shows too.” “It’s like people
are starting to
‘get it’ now,” adds Bowers. “They are understanding what we’re
trying to
do and they’re digging the music.”
Digging it they are... that’s obvious from the kinds of
prestigious gigs
this obscure and wholly original N.W. Indiana band has started playing in the
last year or so – Legends, Wise Fool’s Pub, FitzGerald’s, and The Abbey
Pub,
to name a few.
The attention they drew playing such noted venues
enticed the
music-savvy folks at WXRT-FM to start spinning “Feelin’ In The Air” and
“No
Good For Me” from their Brother CD.
This major market radio exposure came on top of an
already heavy dose of
college radio and secondary market commercial radio play that tracks from
that CD had previously gotten.
With the added weight of WXRT’s support, Steepwater
found they had
thousands of music lovers rocking their asses off at Grant Park last summer
for The Taste Of Chicago. This coming summer, the band will most likely
experience a sense of deja’ vu, having been invited back by the music-savvy
folks at WXRT, to headline the radio station’s stage there on July 4th.
Merchandise vendors last summer reported that the
fledgling Hoosier band
made enough of an impression on the audience that their then brand new,
Brother To The Snake, outsold the CDs of most of the bigger name artists that
weekend.
Since then, Steepwater have headlined at major concert
rooms like the Dou
ble Door and The Metro, along with supporting a bevy of big name talents like
– David Allen Coe, Cracker, Sonny Landreth, The Kinsey Report, Son Seals and
reigning blues icon of Chicago, Buddy Guy.
In fact, impressed with what the band has done in the
past at his own
Legends club, Guy has invited Steepwater to open his all-ages WXRT-sponsored
Metro show on Monday, March 11.
Then on March 15, Steepwater returns to The Double Door
to headline a
bill that includes Bloodshot recording act, Devil In A Woodpile, and The Last
Vegas. Following that, they will be back at FitzGerald’s on March
21,
having accepted an invitation to again open for The YayHoos, the new national
touring band featuring ex-Georgia Satellites frontman, Dan Baird.
“We get along really well with those guys,” said
Connelly, adding that
they previously played with them at The Abbey Pub last year.
Not only are local heavies taking close notice of
Steepwater, but so are
some well-connected folks on the Coasts.
Not wanting to jinx a just made deal that was still
requiring contract
signings at press time, Winters was very reluctant to spill the beans on a
new management agreement the group is currently entering into.
Winters
eventually revealed the prospective manager’s name to this writer on the
condition that it not be announced until “all the ducks are in a row” so to
speak. While I promised not to name-drop, I can say that the person with
whom they are most likely aligning themselves, is quite ensconced in the
music industry and currently has a pair of nationally known acts already
under his protective wing.
The band is waiting to see what develops from here
before committing to
any future plans for recording a follow-up to Brother To The Snake. “It’s
really expensive to make CDs and we’re still paying on the Brother disc,”
said Winters. “We’d really like to think that the next CD will
be (done)
for a record label,” added Massey. “Once the management thing is
confirmed
we are hopeful that we’ll get signed sometime soon.”
That does not mean the group has been lax in the
writing department
though. “We’ve been playing some of the new songs we’ve written with
the
next album in mind in our live shows and people are really digging them,” enthused Winters.
“Yeah, we’re trying to play out as many of the new
songs as we can so
that have some time to develop,” adds Bowers. “That way, when it’s time to
record them, they’re the best they can be and we’re comfortable with
them.”
With a very bright future looking to lay ahead, Chicago
music lovers
should readily dip themselves a cool and refreshing cup of Steepwater.
Drink up deeply and enjoy it now, while it still
flows freely in the
tributary of the local club scene, because soon it’s bound to be bottled and
sold.
A talented band on the rise! ‘Nuff
said.
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